Checking Out the Turkey Vultures Nest and Did We Lose One

Wednesday June 17, 2015 Jenner CA.

It was sunny as I drove into Jenner this  morning. But as I put my boat in the water, the fog started moving in.

Lots of feathers on the water

Here’s what if looked like as I paddled up the river along the south shoreline. Yesterday and today I thought it was interesting to see a lot of turkey vulture feathers floating around in the grasses in the water like what you see in the this picture. The grasses is what you see, not the feathers. The wind can blow these feathers all around, so I wasn’t sure where they all came from. I watched for a dead bird, but I didn’t’ see any, but maybe I found the answer later?

There were a couple female mallards with their little ones taking it easy along the river’s edge that I passed.  Here’s one of them with the chicks.

Across the river I could see this group of geese resting on the gravel by Paddy’s rock. A couple cormorants were with them too.

Muskrat area

I paddled out of the fog and was headed just up ahead past that big rock, which I call Muskrat Nest beach.

I like to sit in  my boat in this spot at Muskrat. This is what I saw looking back down the river to the town of Jenner which is in the fog.

Vulture’s nest

While sitting there I was thinking I should take a walk up to the turkey vulture nest and see if they had left the nest yet. Last time I saw the two young birds, they were getting their black feathers, so I figure they might have moved into some trees to start their flying, so I wasn’t sure what I’d find. The nest was just in back of me up the hill a bit.

Buzzard rock

The nest is just below what I call Buzzard Rock. I put my boat ashore and walked up to the rock.This is the view from the rock looking down the river. I didn’t see that vulture sitting in the trees on the left until just now, maybe the vulture momma? That’s Paddy’s rock down there in the water.

I carefully looked over the side of Buzzard rock and didn’t see the young vultures where I’d seen them before and thought they might have left, but then something caught my eye up against the big rock. Looking closer, it was one of the young turkey vultures resting in the sun.

Here’s what it looked like, looking down on it from the top of the rock.

From the top of the rock, I could also see this osprey flying around hunting for fish in the water below.

Could this be where all the feathers came from

I sat down at the top of the big rock for about a half hour taken it easy and enjoying the day. Just before I left I took some more photos of the young bird. I only saw the one bird and was thinking maybe the other bird was in the nest. But then I remembered all the turkey vulture feathers floating on top of the water I’d seen earlier. Could the other chick have met it’s end?

I took another trial back to my boat that goes up above the rock and shot this photo looking down the river towards Jenner. That rock on the left is Buzzard Rock where the turkey vulture’s nest is below it.

I got back in my boat and paddled leisurely back down the river. I heard an osprey hit the water in one of it’s dives trying to get fish. Here’s the osprey just coming out of the water after a non-successful dive. The osprey seemed actively diving today, but most of them seemed to me missing their catch as most came up empty clawed.

Geese

I decided to cross the river to the other side where the geese where. As they saw me coming they started walking down the beach to keep ahead of me, so I crossed back over to the south side of the river.

Here’s the geese walking along the shoreline keeping ahead of my approach.

I was paddling along when I saw this little dead fish in the water, so I backed up to see if I  could identify it at all?

It has a little sucker type mouth, so maybe it’s a carb or maybe a squaw fish? It was about two inches long.

I stopped here at otter’s log and watched for a bit. The fog was moving in again.

I worked my way to the boat ramp and went on home for the day.

Propane and gas for the van

After a rest at home, I took my van to town and got the propane tank filled up , then I went to the gas station and filled my gas tank up. After that, I went to the store and bought the last of the food I should need for my  upcoming trip that I was going to leave on tomorrow……………..But.

However, Steve the guy that was going with me has taken ill, so I need to give him a bit of time to see what’s going on. If he is good to go in a couple days, we’ll be off. Otherwise, I’m off on this trip by myself which I have no problem with, but Steve will sure miss out on a good trip.

So, I’ll just have to wait and see how he does.

Nice day.